


i built this suit of armor with wooden arms

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, Hurt but not a lot of comfort, Jordan/his duties as a captain and a friend, ode to a cruel and unhappy game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 17:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: i'm sad abt Ox and i drank a lot of coffee today, started writing, couldn't stop, now crying in the bathroom from excess caffeine and emotion. if ever there was a reason to write fic, that's..it





	i built this suit of armor with wooden arms

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sad abt Ox and i drank a lot of coffee today, started writing, couldn't stop, now crying in the bathroom from excess caffeine and emotion. if ever there was a reason to write fic, that's..it

Ox thinks, this is the worst time of my life.

 

Pragmatic, like. He knows it’s probably objectively true. He’s a footballer, (even that carries its own dark cloud of misery wrapped all around it like a christmas gift), and he can’t play football, and it’s therefore the worst time of his life.

His knee hurts like someone was poking it with a red hot iron. He wasn’t unused to hurt, again, footballer (again, the chime of misery that accompanied the thought), but this felt different, somehow. Everyone had said it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t even the Roma player’s fault, all he could blame was the rain and slippery grass and a moment’s instinctive thoughtlessness. It screwed up his heart, like someone crushing paper into a ball, that moment. It lingered on replay, a bad rap chorus with a shitty beat that somehow stuck in your head for days. The rain, the slide, his knee folding under him too fast, too hard, the bloom of pain that erased every other thought.

They clapped for him when he went off, even though he couldn’t face sitting up and acknowledging it. He hears them, getting on their feet and applauding, like he’d done something worthy instead of being carried out on a stretcher, wounded. It’s true what they said, Ox thinks, the thing about people forgetting. Arsenal, Liverpool, loyalties, if he could prove himself to them and earn his keep they’ll forget what came before.

It’s a double edged sword, that. He doesn’t want people to forget now. It didn’t seem fair, another unfair thing, he supposed, to add to the pile. The lads had all sent their muted apologies and get-well-soon’s in the group chat, and the talk had quickly turned to the second leg in Rome.

  
  


It’s hard not to be bitter.

 

“It’s okay to be bitter,” Hendo says. He called; Ox supposed it was a team captain thing. “I know what you’re going through.”

  
  


“Do you?” It sort of burst out. He didn’t want to say it like that, but.

  
  


“Yeah,” Hendo says, “I really do.”

  
  


Ox bites his tongue and thinks about the time Hendo missed, with his heel and all the other issues. Hendo knows. Everyone, more or less, knows. And yet he’s still the only one in the medical room blinking back tears against the fluorescent light, listening to the physio say with the gentlest voice, the voice they reserved for terminal patients and useless footballers, that his world cup chances were over.

 

“I’m coming over,” Hendo announces. Ox blinks at the fact that he just invited himself.

 

“Okay?” he says, thinking it was kind of opposite, that he’s asking a question.  
  


“Yeah. Want me to get take out on the way? It’s not really allowed,” Hendo says, lowering his voice. “We’re on a strict diet. But.”  
  


“Okay,” Ox says, smiling a little. “Fine. Bring whatever.”  
  


Hendo arrives with the biggest bag of take out food, Ox staring aghast by the door as he brought it in from the back of his car. He’s wearing a hat- the right way round, a rarity for Hendo- pulled over his face like he was on a covert mission.  
  


“What are you doing out of bed?” Hendo says, making his second trip. Ox leaned on the doorframe and adjusted his crutches to let him pass.  
  


“I’m not an invalid,” he says, watching Hendo bring out the drinks. “And how many people are you feeding?”  
  


“Just you,” Hendo says cheerfully. “I wasn’t sure what you liked so I got a bit of a variety.”  
  


They settle in the living room, Ox’s leg propped up carefully on a cushion like an awkward ice breaker or a hideous center piece. He catches Hendo staring at it, nibbling on a chicken wing.  
  


“Well?” Ox says. “What are the lads up to. How’s training?”  
  


Hendo waves a hand. “Fine.”  
  


“How’s the boss?”

 

“Also fine. Stoke’s going alright but you can tell he’s a bit distracted with the Rome match.”

 

It settles easily between them, Ox tentatively reaching into Hendo’s bag of assorted food to come up with a container of mashed potatoes. He opens it and gestures for a spoon. Hendo hops down from where he’s sitting, on the bar stool at the counter, and goes hunting in the kitchen for the utensils drawer.

“There’s no spoon in the bag?” he says, pulling cabinets open at random.  
  


It was kind of amusing, Ox directing him around, feeling like lord of his domain and king of his castle from his prone position.

  
  


Hendo finds it in the end, (“Who puts it right beside the knife block?”) and gives it to him with a mock bow. It makes Ox laugh out loud, which feels weird, and he stops because just twitching his knee makes it hurt more. Hendo looks a little chastised, and they go back to picking at the food.

  
  


“Well?” Hendo says, when they’ve tried their best to make a dent in the food hoard and ended up putting the rest into the fridge, to be dealt with at a later time. Ox is sipping pepsi, which felt vaguely sacrilegious, Hendo’s drinking water like he’d rather not be but mindful of Stoke, and they’re sitting together on the couch. Ox is still trying not to move his leg.

“Well what?” Ox says, putting a cushion behind his back like a ninety year old man.  
  


“Do you feel better?”  
  


Ox thinks about it. Truthfully no, he didn’t. On the other hand, Hendo had made the effort, gone above and beyond his captainly duties, and was still here, holding a remote on his sofa like he belonged here.  
  


“Yeah,” Ox says. “I do.”  
  


Hendo squints at him, getting a look like he can catch Ox in a lie if he wanted to but was going to let it go, for now.

  
They played FIFA, which had been rejected by the whole team in favor of ProEvo until they put Hendo on the cover, after which there was a sure trickle back, mostly enforced by Hendo himself. They get too into it, predictably, Hendo bent over his controller with his tongue between his teeth and practically growling through every imaginary tackle. And then Ox scores, a beauty of a goal from thirty yards that was evident even in pixelated form, and accidentally forgets he’s injured. He almost falls off the couch trying to jump up and celebrate, and his leg feel like it just broke at the knee.

 

“Oh fuck,” Ox says, “Oh _mother_ fuck-”

 

Hendo’s swearing and hovering above him, hands flapping and wearing the most horrified expression. Ox doesn’t think he’s ever looked like that, not even when he conceded a goal or passed to an opposition player by accident or got red carded in a bad tackle.

 

“It’s fine,” he says, biting back a whimper. “It’s fine.”

 

Hendo slowly drags him back onto the couch and positions him as gently as he would a doll made of tissue paper. They both sat for a bit, watching the tv replay Ox’s Messi’s beautiful goal go in past pixel Navas.  
  


“I did that like two weeks ago,” Ox says. “You know. In real life. With my leg.”  
  


Hendo looks at him, not speaking. Hendo’s only twenty seven, three years older than him, captained both England and Liverpool and is a bit of a rascal when he isn’t captaining, badgered him relentless to join Liverpool for years for god knows why, and he’s here, trying to cheer him up.

  
  


“You’ll do it again,” Hendo says, “I know it.”

  
  


Ox has to close his eyes to absorb that, maybe make sure he doesn’t start crying again. He wasn’t a cryer but football kind of pushed that on him. He wasn’t scared of pain but he’s scared of losing. He wasn’t scared of pain but he’s scared. There are things, he knows, twenty four and missing the world cup like a bad joke, like time had looped back around to 2014, that can slip out of his grasp easy as anything. Those years don’t come back again, those chances remained missed, and all he has is one moment to hold on to.

 

Maybe more than that. Hendo reaches over and puts a hand firmly in the middle of his chest, as though to ensure Ox’s heart was still beating. Ox resists the urge to tell him his heart’s fine.

  
  


“You’re fine,” Hendo says. And Ox thinks, _I want to believe that._

  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading !


End file.
